29-year-old Monika Paulikienė and 24-year-old Ainė Raupelytė, the first independent volleyball players to taste Olympic bread in the history of Lithuania, finished their performance at the Paris Olympic Games.
In the last match of group E, Lithuanians lost 0:2 (11:21, 5:21) to Japanese Akiko Hasegawa and Miki Ishii. Before that, our country's pair, who lost to the Dutch and Brazilian women, remained fourth in the group. The Netherlands and Brazil, who took the first two places, immediately entered the round of XNUMX, while the Japanese women will still have to fight for a place in the playoffs.
Only in 2024 M.Paulikienė and A.Raupelytė defeated this Japanese couple four times. However, according to the Lithuanians, they did not manage themselves psychologically in Paris.
"It was likely that it would. Before every game we had problems with psychological things Shame on our team. This is how to play in the Olympic Games... Not wanting, not giving up, not being afraid of something. There may be fear, but to the point where we only score five points per set with the Japanese women, I don't know what must be in our heads. It's a shame for the whole team, it's a shame that we were on the pitch today. It would have been better if we hadn't gone to play. Sorry everyone. There were many believers. Many of those who contributed to us being here. And we gave away the victory so easily. We are probably not very grateful to people for getting to the Games", M. Paulikienė did not spare herself the criticism.
A. Raupelytė also agreed with her: "We have never played so poorly the whole tournament. It seems that our heads have broken and we have not done anything. Everything you do is wrong. We wouldn't win against anyone with a game like that. We wouldn't even beat an amateur couple right now."
The couple made it to the Olympic Games without state aid, solely with the funds of their relatives and supporters.
Already on August 13-18. the European Championship will take place. Will the team be able to recover before him?
"You just need to talk with each other, with the team, with the coach. Then it will be easier. But we don't know how to do it yet, we keep everything inside ourselves, how can there be a good result?
Maybe you need specialist help. We have solved these problems more than once. The help of a sports psychologist would be helpful. You just need to apply, and not think that maybe today will be good", said M. Paulikienė.
The 32 strongest downhill pairs will participate in the European Championship. Lithuanian Olympians are ranked ninth among them.
LTOK.lt
